Take Four on Take 2

The fourth annual Hamptons Take 2 Documentary Film Festival, which highlights work by local filmmakers, will open on Friday, Nov. 18, with a tribute to the filmmaker Richard Leacock at Guild Hall from 5:30 to 9:30 p.m.
The evening begins with a cocktail reception, and then features two of Mr. Leacock’s documentaries, “Happy Mother’s Day,” and “Crisis.” D.A. Pennebaker, a fellow filmmaker, will lead a panel discussion on Mr. Leacock’s work afterward along with his children, Victoria Leacock Hoffman and Robert Leacock, also filmmakers, and Pam Wise.
On Nov. 19, the festival moves to the Bay Street Theatre in Sag Harbor, where screenings will run from 11 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. and on Sunday, the whole thing will be repeated at the Westhampton Beach Performing Arts Center.
The Bay Street schedule offers a marathon of screenings beginning with Student Circle Films, three shorts by Long Island high school students at 11 a.m. “Happy Mother’s Day” will be shown again from 11:30 a.m. to noon, followed by “Inside the Perfect Circle: The Odyssey of Joel Thome” by Chris Pepino from noon to 1:15 p.m. The afternoon brings Cat Del Buono’s short “Take My Hair” at 1:15; Richard Kotuk’s “Travis,” about a 10-year-old boy with AIDS, at 1:45; “Rescued Twice: The History and Revival of the Amagansett Life-Saving Station” by Eileen Torpey at 3, Madeline Amgott’s “Esteban Vicente: Portrait of an Artist,” at 3:30 p.m., and “Suzanne Farrell: Elusive Muse” by Anne Belle, from 4:30 to 6:30.
“Quarry” by Richard P. Rogers, a brief look at teenagers who hung around the Quincy Quarry in the early 1970s, will be shown at 8 p.m., and finally, “The Windmill Movie” by Alexander Olchs, about Richard P. Rogers of Wainscott, who was working on a film of his life when he died in 2001, will be shown from 8:15 to 9:45.
Ms. Del Buono, a part-time East Hampton resident, talked last week about “Take My Hair,” about growing her hair and cutting it off for her cousin’s wife, who was undergoing chemotherapy. “Hair to her is incredibly important. I figured I could do something for her by giving her my hair,” she said. She followed the hair from her head to a wigmaker’s shop. “I’d heard lots of the hair people donated gets thrown out, and then I heard that my cousin’s wife had cancer,” she said. “I found a wigmaker, which is hard in the U.S. It’s about $5,000 to make a wig. I found a guy who did these wigs for $500, specifically for chemo patients.”
While interviewing the wigmaker, Ms. Del Buono found out he had cancer, and that making wigs for other people helped sustain him. “He kept the price down because of his chemo patients; no one else was doing that,” she said. The film took a turn when the wigmaker fell ill. “I wasn’t sure what to do with the film; it didn’t have an ending. But it is an ending. You can’t ever guess what will happen when it comes to cancer. It’s unpredictable. It’s not always the happy ending,” Ms. Del Buono said.
In “Inside the Perfect Circle,” Chris Pepino explored the work of the Grammy-winning modern composer Joel Thome and his return to music following a stroke in 1991 that left him paralyzed on the left side of his body. Mr. Thome collaborated with Frank Zappa for many years, and composed for the guitarist Steve Vai, and for Pablo Picasso.
Mr. Pepino followed him to therapy sessions and interviewed his music therapist. “The concert depicted in the film is his first concert in America after several years of working toward rehabilitation,” he said. “It was filmed in New York, and Joel has lived there for years. We’re excited to bring things full circle to show to a New York audience,” he said. Mr. Thome, Mr. Pepino, and Martha Mooke, who performed with the Scorchio Quartet, a string ensemble put together by David Bowie for Mr. Thome’s first return to performing in New York, will field questions after the screening.
Anne Belle’s “Suzanne Farrell: Elusive Muse” traces another aristic life, that of Ms. Farrell, a ballerina who worked with George Balanchine. The film, which premiered at the New York Film Festival and was nominated for an Academy Award, was the third in a trilogy of dance films by the late filmmaker. “Anne was very proud of the film, rightfully so,” said Catherine Tambini, co-producer of the film.
Those who keep up with local news are likely to know something of the background of “Rescued Twice: The History and Revival of the Amagansett Life-Saving Station.” In 1966, the late Joel Carmichael purchased the station for $1 to save it from demolition and to live in. It was donated to East Hampton Town after his death in 2006 and has since been returned to its original 1902 location on Atlantic Avenue. The film interviews the adult Carmichael children, who gave the building to the town, and explores the station’s East End and national significance.
A day pass for the festival costs $35 and can be purchased at the Bay Street Theatre box office, at baystreet.org, or at the door. An evening pass is $20, for films from 8 to 10 p.m., and is available only at the door. Tickets for the tribute at Guild Hall are $75 and can be had in advance at HT2FF.com, or at the door.